Beijing the site of a $15 million dollar promotion for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics

Organizers of Vancouver's 2010 Winter Olympic Games will be doing all they can to snag some of Beijing's limelight during this Olympic year.

In May, the British Columbia - Canada Pavilion will open near Tiananmen Square to showcase the games, the province, and the country. And, according to Vancouver radio station CKNW, it will host more than 60 paid BC civil servants:

(This transcript was obtained through the government's media monitoring system)

Announcer: More than 60 public servants are getting an all-expense paid
trip to Beijing for this year's Olympics. But they won't be volunteers, they'll be working to promote the 2010 Games.

Reporter: The 63 employees have been seconded to work at BC-Canada
House, which was a big hit at the Torino Games in 2006. Premier Gordon Campbell says their priority will be to promote economic opportunities in B.C.

Premier Gordon Campbell: I guess we have two choices; we can either have people that know British Columbia and understand what we're doing, or we can contract the people in China to do it. We think it's better to have people that know British Columbia and we'll be paying them. It's clear we'll be paying them. We're obviously going to pay them to get there.

Reporter: The $15 million program has been expanded from two years ago when nine workers went to Italy two weeks before the Games started. The Beijing Pavilion opens in May - a full three months before this year's Olympics.

With the province posting a $50 million dollar surplus this week, I suppose it feels flush enough to forego the cheaper labor costs in China. (The budget, incidentally, introduced a carbon tax, the first of its kind in North America).

This correspondent, being a former public relations officer in the BC government, has many friends and family who have applied for the posting. As of yet, nobody has been notified whether their applications have been approved.

My fingers are crossed.